High Court. Is the existence of a duty to afford procedural fairness a question of statutory interpretation? Is there a "strong" common law presumption, "generally applicable to any statutory power the exercise of which is capable of having an adverse effect on legally recognised rights or interests, that the exercise of the power is impliedly conditioned on the observance of procedural fairness"?
Some of the questions to the High Court (HCA) were as follows:
Question 1: Are the general principles relating to the interpretation of primary legislation equally applicable to the interpretation of subordinate legislation?
Question 2: Does the task of construing legislation involve "attributing legal meaning to the legislative text, read in context: expounding the meaning of the text and not seeking "to remedy perceived legislative inattention""?
Question 3: Can it be said that a court "may consider the purposes of the relevant legislation in determining whether there is more than one possible construction but may not rewrite legislation in the light of its purposes"?
Question 4: Is the existence of a duty to afford procedural fairness a question of statutory interpretation?
Question 5: Is there a "strong" common law presumption, "generally applicable to any statutory power the exercise of which is capable of having an adverse effect on legally recognised rights or interests, that the exercise of the power is impliedly conditioned on the observance of procedural fairness"?
Question 6: Are there statutory powers that are not conditioned upon a duty to give procedural fairness, in particular powers that affect individuals in an undifferentiated way from the general public?
The HCA answered those questions as follows: